Grandparent Alienation Syndrome?
”Grandchildren learn how to treat their parents by the ways in which they see their parents treat the grandparents,” said Dr. Matti Gershenfeld, an adjunct professor of psychoeducational processes at Temple University in Philadelphia. ”If you’re estranged from your parents, the odds are your children will become estranged from you once they become adults. That’s the model they’re learning.”
Children who have no relationship with grandparents not only may have more difficulties in later relationships with their parents, but may also develop other problems. Dr. M. Duncan Stanton, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Rochester, cited a study of adolescents and drug abuse. ”Those most at risk often had little sense of their family history,” he said. ”Even who their grandparents were.”
Now some grandparenting groups have adapted the idea of parental alienation syndrome (see http://www.fact.on.ca/Info/pas/wals... for the criteria of PAS) to describe a process in which a child is programmed to reject a grandparent. The website Alienated Grandparents Anonymous states that Grandparent Alienation Syndrome is a growing problem involving intimidation, power and control and is a severe form of child and elder abuse “which is creating a lifetime of emotional problems for our grandchildren.”
Your thoughts on the concept /experience of Grandparent Alienation Syndrome (GAS)?
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